11 ms·

The Couple That Pays Each Other to Put Kids to Bed

78 points by dreeves 13y ago

dreeves 13y ago
See also this super nerdy discussion of these nutjobs [1] on LessWrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jje/decision_auctions_aka_how_to_fairly_assign_chores/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/jje/decision_auctions_aka_how_to_fai... [1] Yes, that's actually me and my spouse (also cofounder of http://beeminder.com http://beeminder.com and if you think our auction-based lifestyle is crazy, wait till you see Beeminder! :)).
- fishtoaster 13y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, doesn't this lose some of its effectiveness when one spouse is in a lot of debt (the article mentions $80k)? It seems like it'd be harder to make a useful estimate of utility when you're so deep in debt. What's another $10 when I own 80k? I'll just bet really high to avoid doing the chore.
  - dreeves 13y ago
    Happy to answer such questions! (I'll ask Bethany to chime in later as well.) I guess at our age (lots of future earning ahead of us, etc) $80k doesn't seem like a big deal. We could actually wipe that debt out immediately by an adjustment to our cap table. :) I guess the danger is if you start to worry that the debt will never actually get repaid. But that doesn't seem like a worry right now. We'll come up with payments plans and whatnot if it ever does. We do use a 6% interest rate on that balance, which seems steep at current market rates, but not so much so that Bethany would want to transfer Beeminder equity to me to pay it off.
- patmcc 13y ago
  Hey, thanks for Beeminder. It's cost me a bunch of money (~75 bucks), but it's also helped me make some really positive changes. One small note - I'd really like it if I could pledge in CAD, so I don't see the annoying conversion from USD and wonder "what the hell did I spend $5.42 on"...but that's a very tiny nitpick.
  - dreeves 13y ago
    So good to hear testimonials like that; thank you! As for supporting non-USD currencies, I see Stripe just made that super easy, so we'll probably do it at some point. Thanks for the feedback; nitpickery very much solicited!
- cmsmith 13y ago
  I like the idea of introducing everyday decisions to a market economy and the idea of beeminder. Re:beeminder, I know that you address this on your FAQ, but my conscience would have little problem lying to your website to keep from paying you $10. Whereas I would be much less likely to be dishonest if 50%-80% of my penalty was going to a charity - even if the penalty levels were increased such that your cut was the same either way.
  - dreeves 13y ago
    Great feedback, thank you! We definitely hear that often and will probably eventually cave and add a charity option. In the meantime, here are our thoughts on combating cheating: http://blog.beeminder.com/cheating http://blog.beeminder.com/cheating
- biot 13y ago
  Was this something picked up independently by NBC, or was this planned as a subtle PR piece for Beeminder? If the latter, are there any tips you can share on how you went about arranging it?
  - dreeves 13y ago
    You're making us feel like marketing geniuses. :) The reporter is actually a Beeminder user, which is how he knew about me and Bethany and our craziness, and he was happy to agree to our stipulation that the article link to Beeminder. So I guess no tips on how to actually orchestrate something like this. Last year we had our biggest press coup just by having our phone number at the bottom of beeminder.com. Southwest Airlines inflight magazine called us after trying and failing to find a number for our competitor, GymPact. I guess that's the real tip here: be so crazy that journalists seek you out. :)
andyl 13y ago
Relationship dynamics transacted in dollars - wow. The next logical step would be to bring this system to the sexual realm.
fishtoaster 13y ago
I wonder how they deal with differences in income levels. The article only touches on that briefly: "He's also earned more in his life, giving him a bigger pot to bet with. " For example, my long-term girlfriend has an art degree, and I'm a professional developer. It's likely that I will make more than her for the foreseeable future; maybe as much as 1.5x to 2x. Should I do half the housework? It seems like that leads inexorably to the 1950s logic of "I bring home the bacon so you should keep the house." (That said, it seems to be working for these two, so more power to them. :) )
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Was the 1950's logic fundamentally wrong? If one partner is not working, should they not contribute more to the house?
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
    And is 1950's logic different than logic?
    - throwawayXYZ83 13y ago
      The second definition is being used here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - aneisf 13y ago
    Maybe not, but in this case both partners are working. In fact, the wife could very well be working more and still earning less.
  - dsrguru 13y ago
    1950s logic (at least in the US) was not that if one partner is not earning money, they should contribute more to the house. 1950s logic was that the male partner earns the money, and the female partner should be satisfied with housework, regardless of whether or not she prefers it. This logic cyclically resulted from, and resulted in, many parents only putting their male children through college.
andrewpbrett 13y ago
Lest anyone think this is exaggerated or linkbait-y, I've personally seen them do this, a lot. For example, a $100 gas purchase was immediately resolved using a method similar to what's shown in the video - had the number come up, $1000 would have changed hands (it didn't, much to my chagrin).
Dramatize 13y ago
My wife and I do something like this. We both have a 'piggy bank' we can spend on anything without the others input. Each week we get an allowance + bonuses for extra chores.
hemancuso 13y ago
I, personally, have a hard time imagining a successful marriage without a shared pool of income. Paying one another to do chores or evaluating each other's fiscal contribution to nearly every decision seems insane. Who pays for college? Who pays for food? Maternity leave? Career switching. This list goes on. Good luck.
- aaronpk 13y ago
  It does seem insane. It also seems like it's working quite well! Having separate finances is not exactly a new idea, plenty of people do that. My partner and I have completely separate finances, but equally share expenses like food, housing, repairs, etc. Works fine for us!
  - lutorm 13y ago
    I guess you have about the same income then? Or do you "tax" each other an equal percentage?
    - scott_karana 13y ago
      Why does it matter? They'd have to mutually agree on the shared expenses, and agree on the splitting. If they get a house they both want, and both can afford, they split 50/50. Hypothetically, I'm guessing that if whoever made more income wanted a nicer place than the other, they could pay an agreed proportion more (eg, 60/40)
      - dreeves 13y ago
        Indeed, that's the Joint Purchase Auction we talk about here: http://messymatters.com/autonomy http://messymatters.com/autonomy
- diminoten 13y ago
  The money aspect of this seems more of an honesty check than anything else. It's not like a... wait. I just had an idea. Could a roommate of theirs live off of yootling? Bidding well, a person could more or less do their busy work for them, get "paid" for it, and use those payments to subsidize their costs of living! Anyway, what I was going to say was that the money aspect of this seems mostly as a way to keep the bets honest. You don't really want wild bets of, say, $1,000,000 or whatever, because then fair market value for the activity becomes impossible to assess. Or something like that. The person with the PhD should probably explain it.
mburney 13y ago
Applying economic game theory to a relationship seems like a good way to take all the fun and passion out of it
- vacri 13y ago
  I think it's more that there are eccentrics out there, and they by definition do things differently to the usual methods.
- aaronpk 13y ago
  I think the idea is to reduce the amount of time and mental stress around day-to-day tasks to allow for more time for the relationship.
  - dreeves 13y ago
    Well... It's more like this: https://xkcd.com/1319/ https://xkcd.com/1319/ I might have to concede that the whole thing is untenable unless you actually enjoy geeking out about the game theory and mechanism design and whatnot.
- dreeves 13y ago
  Not if you're game theorists! :) But I don't actually understand that objection. Seems analogous to taking Walt Whitman's side in this exchange: http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/whitman.html http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/whitman.html
- epsylon 13y ago
  Unless both participants are geeks who like having fun practicing game theory.
- LaughingWithAtU 13y ago
  This feels more like a stunt to get people interested in their start-up company. The wife is so far in debt that it looks more like gambling with fake money at a Casino Night since the game theoretic model seems it breaks down when there is cost-free debt.
acslater00 13y ago
"Danny paid Bethany about $30,000 in various costs to have their first child while he worked a full-time tech job" I wonder what her bid was for him to have the baby.
- bhaumik 13y ago
  There's no bartering in the bedroom, they say.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  I wonder what her bid was for him to have the baby. It would have to have been considerably more than $30,000. Surrogacy alone runs upwards of $60K. She was clearly lowballed. The inefficiency was probably due to a lack of market transparency or external bidding. Clearly next time they should invite third parties in.
  - LaughingWithAtU 13y ago
    Assuming $60k for a surrogate then the "winning bid" for not having the baby herself would be around $30k. Also, what is the value to her to experience the process of having a baby? Ubber-rich women still have their own babies, so there would appear to be a value in the experience.
- lutorm 13y ago
  This is a good point. There are some things that aren't fungible. Since this was a job that Danny couldn't do, he couldn't bid on it, so that essentially makes it a sole-source, no-bid contract, and those are priceless. Another question I have: what about requirements? (this has come up in my own relationship) Suppose the two partners have different ideas of what constitutes "cleaning the house". One might think that mopping and wiping dust off furniture is necessary, while the other might think vacuuming does it. In a real situation, the two contractors don't just compete on price but on product. But in this case product never enters, unless there's a careful discussion up front about exactly what the requirements of the job are. This doesn't really sound like it would decrease stress to me.
MrZongle2 13y ago
Call me crazy, but in my house we just get shit done because it needs to be done and we, as adults, chose to have children. We don't have time to barter or turn the discussion of who does what into an episode of Antiques Roadshow. For all the smiley faces and show of "oh, isn't this just great", I can't help but think there are some serious issues lurking below the surface. But hey, what do I know? I've only been married for 17 years and have two kids.
- rqebmm 13y ago
  seeing as my girlfriend and I have tried the same trick, the "serious issues" lurking beneath the surface is likely pure, unadulterated laziness.
  - jmathai 13y ago
    A pretty serious issue when you're talking about raising kids.
    - rqebmm 13y ago
      Eh, there's a big difference between lazy and irresponsible. We have a cat and a dog and they are well taken care of because we take our responsibility for their well being seriously, just as we would with a child (likely more so). However, we take our responsibility for the well being of the pile of dishes in the sink much less seriously.
  - MrZongle2 13y ago
    Well, every relationship is about give and take. This is just the first one I've heard of where there's a frigging ledger.
  - dreeves 13y ago
    You have no idea how hard you just nailed it. :) Exhibit B: Beeminder itself, which is an almost hilariously elaborate way for us to force our lazy asses to actually get shit done.
- 13y ago
rqebmm 13y ago
My girlfriend and I have tried multiple variations of "relationship currency" as I like to call it, but since I'm a shrewd bargainer and she has a tendency to be short sighted (i.e. "I'm tired and don't feel like cooking, I'll give you 500 chore-dollars to go pick up dinner") she eventually ends up with a massive debt and is forced to declare "relationship bankruptcy". That said, I'm fully intent on doing something like this with my children. Instead of an allowance of some kind, I think kids would learn a lot about the real world if you paid them for doing chores and performing well at school, then docked them accordingly for food, board, rent and expenses.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  We do something like that for our kids. Each has a set of age appropriate chores they must perform each week to get their "allowance." If they don't do all those chores they get a prorated amount that week. We also deduct from it if they do stuff to get into trouble. Then on payday, each is required to put a certain amount into each of three bins: Spend, Save & Share. The remainder they can divide between those bins how ever they see fit. Spend is for all the random crap they want to buy (stuffed animals, candy, Jamba Juice, etc). Save is for larger, future items and we must approve it. Share is used for charity type stuff (like buying Christmas presents for strangers, etc.) We do make them pay for a portion of their school clothes and stuff like toothpaste to let them see what it is like to not have any spending money after they buy things they need. It has really helped them understand that maybe they don't need another stuff animal if that means they can't buy something else. I think kids lack the perspective of what it takes to earn money. A lot of times (for more expensive requests) we break it down for them by how many weeks of doing ALL their chores would it take to get enough money for it. Suddenly things don't seem as important to them if they realize that it might take 3 or 4 months of not buying anything before they could get it.
  - mtsmithhn 13y ago
    How does that work when you want to buy them an expensive item like a bicycle, segway, computer etc. that would take them too long to save up for?
patja 13y ago
This serves as good evidence for anyone who wonders if Portland is truly as idiosyncratic, iconoclastic, or just plain insane as it is depicted in the television series Portlandia.
dreeves 13y ago
Thanks so much for the awesome discussion here, everyone! Here's another example as told by us to the reporter, that didn't make the cut: ("D" is me and "B" is Bethany, my spouse/cofounder) Another funny auction today, with discussion in our Beeminder developer chatroom. We also conducted the auction via a chatbot that we wrote [https://github.com/aaronpk/zenircbot-bid https://github.com/aaronpk/zenircbot-bid]. You'll see what I mean: (there's actually another little auction that happens as well) D: /bid with @bee for skate in with keys Bot: Ok, collecting bids from: @bee, @dreev Bot: Bidding complete! Here are the bids: @bee: 8, @dreev: 45 D: /roll 10 Bot: 1 [we upgraded the bot in the meantime so the dice rolling to determine payment is built in] D: !! D: now i have to pay bee $80 [$8*10] to not skate her the keys D: done Aaron: so confused D: we can explain if you'd like! D: here's a hypothetical normal-person equivalent of what just happened: "i forgot my keys, any chance you were going to skate in soon?" "i wasn't going to but i could, because i love you!" "that's ok, honey, i'm fine at this coffee shop till my next appointment, when i was going to come home anyway" "well, ok, i'll let you fend for yourself. i'll clean the bathroom to make it up to you." D: so the bids replace the feeling each other out -- "i *could* skate in", "that's ok", etc. -- and the payment replaces the "i'll make it up to you" Uluc: Ok, I committed the change. It might be best if you took a look at the source in case I screwed something obvious up. app/models/goal.rb line 197 D: /bid with @bee for deploying uluc's code Bot: Ok, collecting bids from: @bee, @dreev [nerd discussion about beeminder code redacted] Bot: Bidding complete! Here are the bids: @bee: 0, @dreev: 10 [bethany deploys the code] Aaron: do those bids mean bee doesn't care, and dreev was more willing to pay $10 than to deploy? B: yes D: right D: did my normal-person equivalent make sense? Aaron: sort of yes D: we think of it as mathematically equivalent to me *halfway* skating bethany the keys. i could've just done it cuz i'm nice, or she could've just refused the favor cuz she's nice. instead we made it a 50/50 joint decision for which outcome would happen so it's like half a favor. and more importantly, it ensures the favor only happens if it's socially efficient for the favor to happen B: also, the "hey, i forgot my keys. were you planning to skate in today?" "Not really, maybe." "Oh, well I was planning to come home after this appointment anyway..." all did happen behind the scenes. but instead of continuing that back and forth for another few iterations we stopped there and yootled.
chrisBob 13y ago
We do this, but have a shared account, and don't bother to move the money. We are also both pretty cheap, and don't spend much money other than "I will give you $100 to go start tea for me."
LaughingWithAtU 13y ago
How does bidding on who pays the mortgage and other bills work? For example, if one has to pay the mortgage then the other should have to pay them rent via this bidding process. Same for gas, electric, etc.

78 points by dreeves 13y ago

See also this super nerdy discussion of these nutjobs [1] on LessWrong: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jje/decision_auctions_aka_how_to_fairly_assign_chores/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/jje/decision_auctions_aka_how_to_fai... [1] Yes, that's actually me and my spouse (also cofounder of http://beeminder.com http://beeminder.com and if you think our auction-based lifestyle is crazy, wait till you see Beeminder! :)).

fishtoaster 13y ago
If you don't mind me asking, doesn't this lose some of its effectiveness when one spouse is in a lot of debt (the article mentions $80k)? It seems like it'd be harder to make a useful estimate of utility when you're so deep in debt. What's another $10 when I own 80k? I'll just bet really high to avoid doing the chore.
- dreeves 13y ago
  Happy to answer such questions! (I'll ask Bethany to chime in later as well.) I guess at our age (lots of future earning ahead of us, etc) $80k doesn't seem like a big deal. We could actually wipe that debt out immediately by an adjustment to our cap table. :) I guess the danger is if you start to worry that the debt will never actually get repaid. But that doesn't seem like a worry right now. We'll come up with payments plans and whatnot if it ever does. We do use a 6% interest rate on that balance, which seems steep at current market rates, but not so much so that Bethany would want to transfer Beeminder equity to me to pay it off.
patmcc 13y ago
Hey, thanks for Beeminder. It's cost me a bunch of money (~75 bucks), but it's also helped me make some really positive changes. One small note - I'd really like it if I could pledge in CAD, so I don't see the annoying conversion from USD and wonder "what the hell did I spend $5.42 on"...but that's a very tiny nitpick.
- dreeves 13y ago
  So good to hear testimonials like that; thank you! As for supporting non-USD currencies, I see Stripe just made that super easy, so we'll probably do it at some point. Thanks for the feedback; nitpickery very much solicited!
cmsmith 13y ago
I like the idea of introducing everyday decisions to a market economy and the idea of beeminder. Re:beeminder, I know that you address this on your FAQ, but my conscience would have little problem lying to your website to keep from paying you $10. Whereas I would be much less likely to be dishonest if 50%-80% of my penalty was going to a charity - even if the penalty levels were increased such that your cut was the same either way.
- dreeves 13y ago
  Great feedback, thank you! We definitely hear that often and will probably eventually cave and add a charity option. In the meantime, here are our thoughts on combating cheating: http://blog.beeminder.com/cheating http://blog.beeminder.com/cheating
biot 13y ago
Was this something picked up independently by NBC, or was this planned as a subtle PR piece for Beeminder? If the latter, are there any tips you can share on how you went about arranging it?
- dreeves 13y ago
  You're making us feel like marketing geniuses. :) The reporter is actually a Beeminder user, which is how he knew about me and Bethany and our craziness, and he was happy to agree to our stipulation that the article link to Beeminder. So I guess no tips on how to actually orchestrate something like this. Last year we had our biggest press coup just by having our phone number at the bottom of beeminder.com. Southwest Airlines inflight magazine called us after trying and failing to find a number for our competitor, GymPact. I guess that's the real tip here: be so crazy that journalists seek you out. :)

andyl 13y ago

Relationship dynamics transacted in dollars - wow. The next logical step would be to bring this system to the sexual realm.

fishtoaster 13y ago

I wonder how they deal with differences in income levels. The article only touches on that briefly: "He's also earned more in his life, giving him a bigger pot to bet with. " For example, my long-term girlfriend has an art degree, and I'm a professional developer. It's likely that I will make more than her for the foreseeable future; maybe as much as 1.5x to 2x. Should I do half the housework? It seems like that leads inexorably to the 1950s logic of "I bring home the bacon so you should keep the house." (That said, it seems to be working for these two, so more power to them. :) )

sliverstorm 13y ago
Was the 1950's logic fundamentally wrong? If one partner is not working, should they not contribute more to the house?
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
  And is 1950's logic different than logic?
  - throwawayXYZ83 13y ago
    The second definition is being used here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- aneisf 13y ago
  Maybe not, but in this case both partners are working. In fact, the wife could very well be working more and still earning less.
- dsrguru 13y ago
  1950s logic (at least in the US) was not that if one partner is not earning money, they should contribute more to the house. 1950s logic was that the male partner earns the money, and the female partner should be satisfied with housework, regardless of whether or not she prefers it. This logic cyclically resulted from, and resulted in, many parents only putting their male children through college.

andrewpbrett 13y ago

Lest anyone think this is exaggerated or linkbait-y, I've personally seen them do this, a lot. For example, a $100 gas purchase was immediately resolved using a method similar to what's shown in the video - had the number come up, $1000 would have changed hands (it didn't, much to my chagrin).

Dramatize 13y ago

My wife and I do something like this. We both have a 'piggy bank' we can spend on anything without the others input. Each week we get an allowance + bonuses for extra chores.

hemancuso 13y ago

I, personally, have a hard time imagining a successful marriage without a shared pool of income. Paying one another to do chores or evaluating each other's fiscal contribution to nearly every decision seems insane. Who pays for college? Who pays for food? Maternity leave? Career switching. This list goes on. Good luck.

aaronpk 13y ago
It does seem insane. It also seems like it's working quite well! Having separate finances is not exactly a new idea, plenty of people do that. My partner and I have completely separate finances, but equally share expenses like food, housing, repairs, etc. Works fine for us!
- lutorm 13y ago
  I guess you have about the same income then? Or do you "tax" each other an equal percentage?
  - scott_karana 13y ago
    Why does it matter? They'd have to mutually agree on the shared expenses, and agree on the splitting. If they get a house they both want, and both can afford, they split 50/50. Hypothetically, I'm guessing that if whoever made more income wanted a nicer place than the other, they could pay an agreed proportion more (eg, 60/40)
    - dreeves 13y ago
      Indeed, that's the Joint Purchase Auction we talk about here: http://messymatters.com/autonomy http://messymatters.com/autonomy
diminoten 13y ago
The money aspect of this seems more of an honesty check than anything else. It's not like a... wait. I just had an idea. Could a roommate of theirs live off of yootling? Bidding well, a person could more or less do their busy work for them, get "paid" for it, and use those payments to subsidize their costs of living! Anyway, what I was going to say was that the money aspect of this seems mostly as a way to keep the bets honest. You don't really want wild bets of, say, $1,000,000 or whatever, because then fair market value for the activity becomes impossible to assess. Or something like that. The person with the PhD should probably explain it.

mburney 13y ago

Applying economic game theory to a relationship seems like a good way to take all the fun and passion out of it

vacri 13y ago
I think it's more that there are eccentrics out there, and they by definition do things differently to the usual methods.
aaronpk 13y ago
I think the idea is to reduce the amount of time and mental stress around day-to-day tasks to allow for more time for the relationship.
- dreeves 13y ago
  Well... It's more like this: https://xkcd.com/1319/ https://xkcd.com/1319/ I might have to concede that the whole thing is untenable unless you actually enjoy geeking out about the game theory and mechanism design and whatnot.
dreeves 13y ago
Not if you're game theorists! :) But I don't actually understand that objection. Seems analogous to taking Walt Whitman's side in this exchange: http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/whitman.html http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/whitman.html
epsylon 13y ago
Unless both participants are geeks who like having fun practicing game theory.
LaughingWithAtU 13y ago
This feels more like a stunt to get people interested in their start-up company. The wife is so far in debt that it looks more like gambling with fake money at a Casino Night since the game theoretic model seems it breaks down when there is cost-free debt.

acslater00 13y ago

"Danny paid Bethany about $30,000 in various costs to have their first child while he worked a full-time tech job" I wonder what her bid was for him to have the baby.

bhaumik 13y ago
There's no bartering in the bedroom, they say.
Aloisius 13y ago
I wonder what her bid was for him to have the baby. It would have to have been considerably more than $30,000. Surrogacy alone runs upwards of $60K. She was clearly lowballed. The inefficiency was probably due to a lack of market transparency or external bidding. Clearly next time they should invite third parties in.
- LaughingWithAtU 13y ago
  Assuming $60k for a surrogate then the "winning bid" for not having the baby herself would be around $30k. Also, what is the value to her to experience the process of having a baby? Ubber-rich women still have their own babies, so there would appear to be a value in the experience.
lutorm 13y ago
This is a good point. There are some things that aren't fungible. Since this was a job that Danny couldn't do, he couldn't bid on it, so that essentially makes it a sole-source, no-bid contract, and those are priceless. Another question I have: what about requirements? (this has come up in my own relationship) Suppose the two partners have different ideas of what constitutes "cleaning the house". One might think that mopping and wiping dust off furniture is necessary, while the other might think vacuuming does it. In a real situation, the two contractors don't just compete on price but on product. But in this case product never enters, unless there's a careful discussion up front about exactly what the requirements of the job are. This doesn't really sound like it would decrease stress to me.

MrZongle2 13y ago

Call me crazy, but in my house we just get shit done because it needs to be done and we, as adults, chose to have children. We don't have time to barter or turn the discussion of who does what into an episode of Antiques Roadshow. For all the smiley faces and show of "oh, isn't this just great", I can't help but think there are some serious issues lurking below the surface. But hey, what do I know? I've only been married for 17 years and have two kids.

rqebmm 13y ago
seeing as my girlfriend and I have tried the same trick, the "serious issues" lurking beneath the surface is likely pure, unadulterated laziness.
- jmathai 13y ago
  A pretty serious issue when you're talking about raising kids.
  - rqebmm 13y ago
    Eh, there's a big difference between lazy and irresponsible. We have a cat and a dog and they are well taken care of because we take our responsibility for their well being seriously, just as we would with a child (likely more so). However, we take our responsibility for the well being of the pile of dishes in the sink much less seriously.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  Well, every relationship is about give and take. This is just the first one I've heard of where there's a frigging ledger.
- dreeves 13y ago
  You have no idea how hard you just nailed it. :) Exhibit B: Beeminder itself, which is an almost hilariously elaborate way for us to force our lazy asses to actually get shit done.
13y ago

rqebmm 13y ago

My girlfriend and I have tried multiple variations of "relationship currency" as I like to call it, but since I'm a shrewd bargainer and she has a tendency to be short sighted (i.e. "I'm tired and don't feel like cooking, I'll give you 500 chore-dollars to go pick up dinner") she eventually ends up with a massive debt and is forced to declare "relationship bankruptcy". That said, I'm fully intent on doing something like this with my children. Instead of an allowance of some kind, I think kids would learn a lot about the real world if you paid them for doing chores and performing well at school, then docked them accordingly for food, board, rent and expenses.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago
We do something like that for our kids. Each has a set of age appropriate chores they must perform each week to get their "allowance." If they don't do all those chores they get a prorated amount that week. We also deduct from it if they do stuff to get into trouble. Then on payday, each is required to put a certain amount into each of three bins: Spend, Save & Share. The remainder they can divide between those bins how ever they see fit. Spend is for all the random crap they want to buy (stuffed animals, candy, Jamba Juice, etc). Save is for larger, future items and we must approve it. Share is used for charity type stuff (like buying Christmas presents for strangers, etc.) We do make them pay for a portion of their school clothes and stuff like toothpaste to let them see what it is like to not have any spending money after they buy things they need. It has really helped them understand that maybe they don't need another stuff animal if that means they can't buy something else. I think kids lack the perspective of what it takes to earn money. A lot of times (for more expensive requests) we break it down for them by how many weeks of doing ALL their chores would it take to get enough money for it. Suddenly things don't seem as important to them if they realize that it might take 3 or 4 months of not buying anything before they could get it.
- mtsmithhn 13y ago
  How does that work when you want to buy them an expensive item like a bicycle, segway, computer etc. that would take them too long to save up for?

patja 13y ago

This serves as good evidence for anyone who wonders if Portland is truly as idiosyncratic, iconoclastic, or just plain insane as it is depicted in the television series Portlandia.

dreeves 13y ago

Thanks so much for the awesome discussion here, everyone! Here's another example as told by us to the reporter, that didn't make the cut: ("D" is me and "B" is Bethany, my spouse/cofounder) Another funny auction today, with discussion in our Beeminder developer chatroom. We also conducted the auction via a chatbot that we wrote [https://github.com/aaronpk/zenircbot-bid https://github.com/aaronpk/zenircbot-bid]. You'll see what I mean: (there's actually another little auction that happens as well) D: /bid with @bee for skate in with keys Bot: Ok, collecting bids from: @bee, @dreev Bot: Bidding complete! Here are the bids: @bee: 8, @dreev: 45 D: /roll 10 Bot: 1 [we upgraded the bot in the meantime so the dice rolling to determine payment is built in] D: !! D: now i have to pay bee $80 [$8*10] to not skate her the keys D: done Aaron: so confused D: we can explain if you'd like! D: here's a hypothetical normal-person equivalent of what just happened: "i forgot my keys, any chance you were going to skate in soon?" "i wasn't going to but i could, because i love you!" "that's ok, honey, i'm fine at this coffee shop till my next appointment, when i was going to come home anyway" "well, ok, i'll let you fend for yourself. i'll clean the bathroom to make it up to you." D: so the bids replace the feeling each other out -- "i *could* skate in", "that's ok", etc. -- and the payment replaces the "i'll make it up to you" Uluc: Ok, I committed the change. It might be best if you took a look at the source in case I screwed something obvious up. app/models/goal.rb line 197 D: /bid with @bee for deploying uluc's code Bot: Ok, collecting bids from: @bee, @dreev [nerd discussion about beeminder code redacted] Bot: Bidding complete! Here are the bids: @bee: 0, @dreev: 10 [bethany deploys the code] Aaron: do those bids mean bee doesn't care, and dreev was more willing to pay $10 than to deploy? B: yes D: right D: did my normal-person equivalent make sense? Aaron: sort of yes D: we think of it as mathematically equivalent to me *halfway* skating bethany the keys. i could've just done it cuz i'm nice, or she could've just refused the favor cuz she's nice. instead we made it a 50/50 joint decision for which outcome would happen so it's like half a favor. and more importantly, it ensures the favor only happens if it's socially efficient for the favor to happen B: also, the "hey, i forgot my keys. were you planning to skate in today?" "Not really, maybe." "Oh, well I was planning to come home after this appointment anyway..." all did happen behind the scenes. but instead of continuing that back and forth for another few iterations we stopped there and yootled.

chrisBob 13y ago

We do this, but have a shared account, and don't bother to move the money. We are also both pretty cheap, and don't spend much money other than "I will give you $100 to go start tea for me."

LaughingWithAtU 13y ago

How does bidding on who pays the mortgage and other bills work? For example, if one has to pay the mortgage then the other should have to pay them rent via this bidding process. Same for gas, electric, etc.